Homophobia and Hate within Roleplay

[Axelu 1772]

im gay and roleplay a conservative nun its chill if you have an in-character basis for that resentment/antiquated ideals such as culture or certain trauma.. what isn’t okay is projecting irl hatred unto others; there’s a discernable difference and very fine line

[Sorcerio 1733]

Many cultures on LOTC have their own reason for disliking homosexuals, whether it’s the high elves due to need for children, or humans that zealously enact their Canonist faith. Notwithstanding the fact that this is indeed a fantasy server, we must also be mindful that the natural laws of consequence still applies, whether great or small in scale. Attempting to shy away from the reality of this conflict will only leave you more dissatisfied as you eventually come to realize cause and effect cannot be abolished.

 

I would argue that the enaction of a character’s beliefs is not enough to justification to condemn this form of conflict—as the small potential minority that do indeed carry their actions through OOC spite are not indicative to the entire notion being condemnable as a whole. That said, there are definitely steps we can take to ensure we’re not being hurtful OOCly, as this is undoubtedly a touching subject for many. In any case, whether it’s sexism, homophobia, or any other form of in-character antipathy, we should be always conscious of the fact that there is still a person on the other side of the character, and that they should be treated with dignity regardless of their character. 

 

I would even encourage gay characters to take it a step further, and maintain a more secret and subtle affair—a forbidden love, if you will. After all, it’s these kind of encounters we hear about in all those classical romances and epic poems, and tales like these hold the potential to be a much more engaging roleplay experience, arguably to a greater degree than those made public through nuzzling roleplay in the middle of the tavern. Still, however you play your character is up to you, I simply ask that you don’t be so quick to condemn others as you claim them to condemn you.

 

[Will (TauFirewarrior) 2437]

I decided to read this topic and replies while on the throne. So you could say this is a sh1t post.

[Zacho 1017]

im sex

[Slimmy_Rimmy 84]

2 hours ago, Malaise said:

Please, please God, make it end. The inane fear of role-play. The asinine hatred of conflict. The escapist pipe dreams of a perfect world, here on this Minecraft server.

 

We, each and every one of us, are on a role-play server. That means we are supposed to insert ourselves into the role of a fictional character and act out their lives – every part of it. If your character is homosexual, they are homosexual. If your character is homophobic, they are homophobic. If your character identifies as a female but was born a biological male, if your character has no sexual urges whatsoever, if your character is bisexual, etc. etc. etc.

 

You do what they would do. That is what role-play is. It is all role-playing has ever been. You make the script. You make the decisions. You act on the outcomes. We are role-playing. I pray anybody keeping their eyes on this thread reads this comment and commits it to memory. It is not unethical to be homophobic in role-play. It is not unethical to commit violence upon homosexual characters. It is not unethical to despise the very notion of love itself. These are real character traits and our world is not a safe one. It never has been. Nearly every single event hosted on Lord of the Craft will involve in some way or form: death, misfortune, and suffering.

 

What difference does it make to your character, who is homosexual, whether you are killed by an angry clergyman who is homophobic, or a roving band of demons that wish to devour your soul? You are harassed by both and must act accordingly as a result. The difference between these two situations lies in the reality of one and the fantasy of another. You should be prepared for homophobia. You should not be prepared for a demon attack. The former hates you for who you are. The latter wishes to consume your soul and annihilate your world. The demons are the worse enemy – not the offender in holy vestments.

 

This is a role-play server. It will never be anything else. Homophobia should always be a facet of our universe and will never cease to be. The second it leaves our universe and spills into OOC, it is a problem, and one that will be fixed quickly if addressed through the proper channels. Do not make yourselves out to be the weak, ineffectual role-players that crying about adversity in-character will make you. 

Well said. Please exercise restraint in your language is immersion breaking enough. Complaining about something that is completely justified by the grounds of a make-believe world’s cultures, religions, and time period just because you choose to take it personally is a great way to ruin things for everyone else trying to participate in the creation of an enticing narrative. OOC issues should stay OOC, and RP issues should stay in RP. When you try and make them collide, it makes the bridge of my nose hurt from pinching it so hard. I’d really hate to see LOTC die from exhaustion, but the fact of the matter is: very few people want to be lectured at in a Minecraft RP server.

[Quavinir_Twiceborn 914]

Eh. Homophobia is sorta just something I’ve come to expect from the bulk of the nations of LOTC, coming from someone who primarily plays gay characters, its been gratingly bog-standard for years. Whether this is purely IC, or OOCly motivated, is probably above my paygrade. LOTC is, oddly enough, one of the more excessively evil and violent fantasy worlds, where there is a constant stream of violent bigots and racial purists, blindly loyal and moralless soldiers willing to commit heinous atrocities by the whim of a superior, murderous 100% greed driven bandits, sadistic torturous psychopaths who take great joy from pain, and hyper-psychotic killers and dark mages. By comparison, homophobia seems a bit tame. 

However, its in that same vein that the world of LOTC has shockingly large amount of freedom of movement. If one’s character is persecuted for X-Y and Z, they can just... go elsewhere at the drop of a hat, and be able to integrate into a more accommodating society. Most characters and creatures are not physically nor mechanically bound to a community, and it is in this way that if a character doesn’t want to be persecuted by an oppressive and bigoted people- they can take a 5 minute walk to a settlement filled with people that will accept them more or less as they are. Despite what people may initially think, there are relatively safe places in LOTC where divergent and non-neurotypical characters will be accepted pretty easily. As vexing and annoying as fantasy homophobia is, its not something you have to deal with.

 

[Draeris 2931]

Homophobia is whack dawg

[RaindropsKeepFalling 107]

It’s complicated.

I want to first disclose that I do not condone real life and OOC homophobia, racism, bigotry, etc. However, I firmly believe it is an entirely different animal when it comes to roleplay. Malaise put it very well.  You are not your character; you simply portray your character.  I’m going to go off on a little tangent here, but it’ll make sense in the scheme of things:

 

A long time ago, I played a bipolar jerk.  He was unpredictable, and a wild card.  One day, he does something really bad and has an affair.  I strongly recall the player coming up to me and saying something along the lines of

”wth dude. whyyyd you do that? thats misogynist.”

 

It sounds a little silly when it’s put that way. The point wasn’t to be a terrible person, or have a flat character for the sake of extending my inner bipolarity to the LotC world.  It was fictional, and he was odd. That was part of what came with playing him, or another interacting with him.  The point was, I was not him, and you are not your character. To claim that portraying any of these faulty issues makes you a believer of them is deeply flawed.  You could say to write a fictional story of inequality makes you the person you are portraying.  You could say Orwell’s 1984 taught us to be fascist. No, and no. I frankly think to blatantly turn our head up and close our eyes, ignoring these things is worse. It erases the fact that they exist.  It plays pretend that a “perfect world” exists, when that is far from the truth. It revises our memories.

 

The time when homophobia and racism becomes a problem is when it is used purely to push your own inner hatred.  OOC harassment is a problem.  That is the sort of thing we should not, and cannot condone.  

 

All of this, I feel, harkens back to a problem that’s been debated a lot on LotC: continuity.  Elves get angry with the human community that they want a more modern setting with artillery and colonialism.  LGBTQ+ character players want a safespace of no homophobia, racism, and such.  There’s an answer to both: you don’t have to look for conflict.  You don’t have to hurt your character.  You don’t have to push yourself into being PKed by some sort of hate crime.  What you do need is to acknowledge that you can’t always guarantee that you won’t be triggered very easily.  Conflict exists, and every person can’t edit themselves IRPly, and their story to your needs.  The same goes the other way, though.  It isn’t biased.

 

One place not accepting enough?  Move. One place too accepting? Move.

 

 When it’s a novel: it’s easy.  We have all the cards in the deck; we can fill out this world.  It’s a little different with roleplay.  The world isn’t yours, and the world isn’t theirs, and that’s okay.

 

I’ll leave this with a bottom line, and the closest thing I can articulate to being an answer: 
Yes, all that can exist, respectfully.

 

((on a side note, don’t harass people and force them into uncomfortable situations: that’s an issue.))

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 23, 2020 by RaindropsKeepFalling

[Princedom Of Elvenesse 293]

While it is okay for your character to have prejudices, a well developed character is defined by what they like, not by what they hate.

 

ergo, if your character’s only personality traits are “hates gays, women and minorities”, then you’re playing a self-insert to act out your prejudices with a thin veil of RP to justify it. If your character is a well developed product of his culture, with goals, ambitions, desires that dont solely revolve around hating people, then its okay for a byproduct of his personality to include prejudice against certain peoples and groups.

[Slayy 813]

I am strongly homophobic @Epistile please do us a favor sir 

[VIROS 1717]

I think I should weigh in here since the majority of homophobic roleplay is associated with Canonism, and I was one of two writers of its Holy Scrolls. I’d echo earlier points made, that homophobia (or bigotry in general) is an acceptable facet of a character or society, but not as its sole focus.

 

In real life, I’m not just gay--I’m polyamorous and in a relationship with two other men. I don’t find anything problematic in roleplaying a character who would condemn me for this. Canonism is both heteronormative and actually more monogamy-oriented than RL Abrahamic religions, because Canonism’s original sin (for mortals) was polygamy. These doctrines developed naturally according to the standards of the time when the religion was written, and I think they are realistic given the original Four Brothers narrative, wherein bloodlines are of supernatural importance.

Because I was aware that IC homophobia can be motivated by OOC homophobia, I specifically did not put anything in the Holy Scrolls that explicitly condemns homosexuality. Unlike real world religious texts, the Scrolls intentionally do not linger on the subject of what sex is appropriate and with whom: there is only one verse that specifies sex is for marriage and that marriage is for a man and woman of the same race. This verse is also intentionally ambiguous, as many of the Scrolls’ verses are, because I wanted to leave room for the religion to develop, and not be an eternal cudgel for OOC bigots who just want an outlet.

 

I think it would do a disservice to years of cooperative writing to force certain beliefs/behaviors ICly in order to better mesh with our OOC morality. All bigotry is intolerable in real life: religious, racial, or gendered prejudices shouldn’t be acceptable either. But it undermines the realism of the world to excise these elements. Murder, I would say, is worse than bigotry--but having played a priest and received confessions, I can tell you IC murder confessions are (hilariously) among the most common you hear.

 

In summary, do be cautious that your IC prejudices are not misconstrued as reflecting your real views. It is already a fairly common practice to PM someone after a heated roleplay session to ensure there isn’t any bad blood out of character; this can also be extended to the roleplay of prejudices. (And, of course, remember to exercise restraint in your roleplay about nasty things like bigotry or murder. These are sensitive subjects, and not writing about them at all is better than writing about them poorly.)

 

 

 

[CalZium 598]

play your characters how you would play them and have fun but dont be mean to other people with ooc intent because that is bad

[Ducklingator 770]

I don’t think there’s any point for me to articulate some big post-- people have made great points here already. Be mindful of people’s trauma to at least some degree, don’t go out of your way to abuse people for their sexuality, and if your irp hatred of gay people comes from ooc hatred, kindly **** off.

 

Now, I will try and add my two cents. First off, even if your character is homophobic, make your story nuanced! You’re supposed to be playing a real person with layers, show that. If you were a homophobe and found out that a close friend or even a family member is gay, would you run off to your nearest church to get them stoned? Or is it more likely that you’d try to ‘deal’ with it yourself, change your opinions, maybe ignore it? If you truly are playing a homophobic character because you think it suits the story, then be realistic with it.

 

Second, and this is a bit less on-topic, let’s not be so two-faced. The topic of separating OOC from RP has come up a few times on this topic in general, and this thread in particular; and, I’ve been on the server for long enough to tell you that most people who’ve brought it up are folks that constantly joke about lesbian Suticans, polyamorous druids, and so on. You can’t whine about people whose characters are gay AND demand that those same people leave you be OOCly when your character is homophobic. It’s a disgusting double standard.

 

That’s all I have to say. If you disagree, I’ve had a million internet screamfests, I’d be happy to have one more. Quote me at will.

[BenevolentManacles 1055]

If you’re not interested in ethnic conflict roleplay, you must not have enjoyed the past 8 years of the server very much.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 23, 2020 by BenevolentManacles

[Legoboy7984 1118]

Don’t think people are homophobic OOCly it’s just RP. From what I’ve seen within some of these comments by those that are gay or whatever, they say that they don’t care and that it’s just RP. In my personal opinion, it’s just the culture of the character they are playing as that leads to it being like that. Should homophobia be a thing on LoTC? No, unless it is primarily based upon the culture they are set in within that character or the religion that’s RPly been set up for generations in roleplay. Which religion IRP can’t really change due to it leading to some sort of wars if said religions ancient holy scrolls were tainted or whatever. It just takes a mutual and mature understanding that they aren’t this way OOCly and that it’s just based upon the setting of the character’s culture or religion.

 

Have no idea if that came out right but hopefully it did, lol. Though just wanna put a final note if they are RPing that way and are like that OOCly then they should probably quit the server, in my opinion.